Expensive advice!

After living with an odd, sporadic, annoying and highly mobile toothache for over a week my anxiety about the possibility of my teeth all of a sudden going into rapid decay and me ending up with dentures got the best of me and I made a dentist appointment (with a new dentist in hopes of having better experiences at the dentist and getting a second opinion on care for my two remaining baby teeth). Inevitably for the two days since making the appointment until this morning the ache had subsided somewhat, leaving me feeling somewhat silly sitting there answering the "and what has brought you to our office today?" question.

So I paid about $80 today to have a very kind dentist, who has my business for the foreseeable future, let me know that I'm under a fair amount of stress and that the toothache and aching sensation moving around through my teeth and gums is very likely one of the side affects of the emotional turmoil of the past year. I've been feeling a good deal of tension in my head and neck in the past several weeks so I guess I should have figured out my mouth could be affected as well. So I'm supposedly clenching, if not grinding, my teeth at night and I need to start practicing making sure my teeth are not touching each other during the day unless I'm talking or eating.

In other words, practice relaxing!!

We are leaving tomorrow morning after one final work meeting of the week for some practice in relaxing. The weather has changed the plans from camping to meeting good friends in PA and bunking at Mom and Dad's. As mom would say, "no great loss [not going camping] without some small gain [unexpectedly getting to tank up on Mommy and Daddy hugs!]."

Since I continue to find myself reflecting on these moments a year ago, I can't help but remember us anticipating a trip to PA to see my folks, for Jason to go fishing, for us to both celebrate our birthdays and attend the wedding of very good friends of ours. After a midwife appointment in which more concern was expressed regarding how our baby was doing in utero and after being encouraged not to travel, we made a much abbreviated trip home. We saw all of our parents in that short trip and yet found the celebration so colored by the uncertainties we were living our way through.

And I remember feeling like I couldn't do "anything" that I liked to do on my birthday because of being on bed rest. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that piece. It's true that I like being active. I enjoy the freedom to walk and run. But over the past year that has become less of a "god" for me. I'm grateful for that.

So as I cross the threshold from my 20's to my 30's this weekend, I continue to take the lessons from the past year of my life, yearning to incorporate them more into daily living. It seems that sometimes they are hardest to apply in the most "normal" of times.